In late 2011, Telegram & Gazette reporter Shaun Sutner and photographer Rick Cinclair traveled to Haiti to tell the story of Britney Gengel and the orphanage under construction in her memory. The r...

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In late 2011, Telegram & Gazette reporter Shaun Sutner and photographer Rick Cinclair traveled to Haiti to tell the story of Britney Gengel and the orphanage under construction in her memory. The reporting team is returning for the orphanage's dedication this weekend. Stay with telegram.com for full coverage.

An unbearable loss and now the end of two years of breakneck construction of a dream is bringing the extended Gengel clan from Central Massachusetts to a small coastal town in Haiti today.

Some 70 guests from the United States and several dozen Haitian friends and co-workers are gathering on a mountainside in Grande Goave, Haiti, for a spiritual ceremony/grand opening for the Be Like Brit Orphanage.

The concrete, nearly earthquake-proof building is named — and shaped — in memory of Britney Gengel, who was 19 when she died in the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince on Jan. 12, 2010, in an earthquake that shattered the impoverished island nation.

The structure is formed in a giant “B,” with two rotundas facing the valley and sea below. It is expected to house 66 orphans, plus staff, and visiting volunteers.

But the devastation that wracked Britney's parents, Leonard and Cherylann Gengel of Holden, spurred Mr. Gengel, 52, a Worcester native and successful builder of private homes, to memorialize their daughter and help Haitian orphans.

Already, the humanitarian effort has redeemed some of the Gengels' suffering, and they are hoping that it will bring hope to a new generation in the largely rural southeastern corner of Haiti about 70 miles from Port-au-Prince.

“This is very personal for us,” Mrs. Gengel said recently at the family's home in Holden, as she and her husband and Be Like Brit's director, Rutland native Kristin Hervey Musser, made final preparations for the opening day events.

Inspired by a text Britney sent a few hours before she was crushed in the wreckage of a luxury hotel, Mr. Gengel set out to build the orphanage, even though he had never built in concrete, and had only once traveled outside the United States.

To realize their dream, the couple created a nonprofit organization, Be Like Brit, and raised nearly $2 million for the orphanage, including their own savings and countless hours of volunteered labor and expertise. Mr. Gengel downsized his Central Massachusetts business and traveled more than three dozen times to Haiti to supervise work.

“We're so close to the finish line,” said Mr. Gengel, who has become conversant in the Haitian language of Creole. “I don't regret even one second of it. I love the Haitian people. I love the children of Haiti.”

On Saturday, the Gengels will present the fruit of their efforts to their large extended family, many of whom have never been to Haiti, and to Britney's friends and college roommates and others who lost children and loved ones in the earthquake.

A graduate of Holden's Wachusett Regional High School, Britney was volunteering with students and faculty from Lynn University of Boca Raton, Fla., when the massive, magnitude-7.0 quake hit.

Also among the many thousands who died were three of Britney's fellow students and two faculty members.

In addition to family, the Gengels' pastor, the Rev. John Madden of St. John's Catholic Church in Worcester, will be on hand, as will the Rev. Robert Lord, of Milford, Conn., who was Mr. Gengel's pastor as a young man.

The two priests will celebrate a Catholic Mass on Sunday morning before the group departs for the Hotel Montana to view the spot, high on a mountain flank overlooking Port-au-Prince, where Britney and the others died.

The Rev. Debra Pallatto-Fontaine, a United Church of Christ minister and professor of teacher education and family studies at Becker College in Worcester, is also on the trip. Be Like Brit has forged a close relationship with Becker, with many students serving as “Britsionaries” helping to build the orphanage over the past two years.

Also there from Worcester will be Susan Johnson, director of nurse education at Quinsigamond Community College, and a member of the orphanage's medical team.

Present as well will be the directors of the medical team, part of the Reston, Va.-based nonprofit Child in Hand: Dr. Gregory R. Ciottone, head of Harvard University's disaster relief section, and his wife, Amalia, a trauma nurse. The Ciottones, of Westminster, have already made several trips to Haiti to design medical programs at the BLB orphanage and at other orphanages in Port-au-Prince.

The only American political luminary on hand will be U.S. Rep. James P. McGovern, along with his chief of staff, Clinton native Christopher Philbin.

The Worcester Democrat used his contacts at the U.S. Department of State to get Mr. Gengel into Haiti 10 days after Britney died. The veteran congressman — noted for his humanitarian efforts in poor countries — led Mr. Gengel and a delegation of Lynn University family members into Haiti from the adjacent Dominican Republic in those chaotic days.

Several media members will be reporting on the trip, including a reporter and photographer from the Telegram & Gazette and telegram.com.

Mr. Gengel said he is proud of the project that he is now ready to unveil in its completion to the outside world.

Along the way, the Gengels and Ms. Musser, the BLB director, have amply documented construction progress on BLB's website and Facebook and Twitter pages, while simultaneously doing full-bore fundraising. The Gengels' sons, Bernie, 20, and Richie, 17, have also helped.

“This is a representation of our daughter,” Mr. Gengel said.

Contact Shaun Sutner at ssutner@telegram.com and on Twitter at @ssutner.

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